Cazoo Open Each-Way Tips: Campillo is a freaky DNA fit

Main Bet: Jorge Campillo 1pt each-way @ 40/1

Ahead of the second round of the 2020 Wales Open the notion of suggesting Jorge Campillo had any sort of hope on this course would have sounded not just odd but downright silly.

His first round 75 had been his 11th lap of the 2010 Course at the Celtic Manor Resort and had maintained his record of never having recorded a sub-70 score.

He's missed the cut on debut in 2012, finished T43rd in 2013, missed another cut in 2013 and missed a third mid-tournament cull a week earlier in the Celtic Classic.

You sense he was only actually playing those two events because it was post-lockdown and everyone was desperate to play anywhere; that he was only playing the second week because he was effectively trapped in the hotel for a fortnight (an experience that was probably a bit like the film The Terminal in which a man is stuck inside JFK airport, such is the vast size and nature of the place).

But he then carded a Friday 68 to make the cut with ease, added a 69 to slide into the top 15 and shot another 69 to land tied eighth.

The worm had turned. From Scrambling at 43% he did so at 63%. From needing 30.40 putts per round, he took 28.00.

That, in itself, wouldn't be enough to persuade me. What's piqued my interest is the extent to which he and last year's Cazoo Open winner Nacho Elvira seem to share golfing DNA.

In fact, if you take a look at where Elvira has made a top three finish and then check on how Campillo has performed there the results are almost preposterous.

Two of Elvira's second tier wins came on courses Campillo has never played on, but a third was Geneve CC where Campillo was second in his only start.

Elvira has finished second three times on the DP World Tour. At Doha (Campillo also has a second there), at Saujana (ditto) and at Dar es Salam (Campillo is a winner there).

Elvira has three times finished third. At Al Mouj (Campillo has a second and a fourth there), at Milano (where Campillo has a seventh) and at Centro Nacional de Golf (Campillo has finished 10th and fifth).

We're getting into the realms of pure coincidence, maybe, but even this year, when Elvira thrashed a 62 to tie the first round lead in the MyGolfLife Open Campillo carded a 65 - and the pair of them were tied sixth at halfway ahead of landing top 15s in the Soudal Open at the start of the summer.

Keeping it a little more straightforward, Campillo has the look of a fellow ready to have a good week.

He flirted with the lead all week ahead of seventh in the Irish Open, a week after finishing T15th in the BMW International Open. And in both of the last two weeks, he's been top 10 ahead of the cut before spluttering at the weekend.

Next Bet: Mikko Korhonen 1pt each-way @ 33/1

Finland's Mikko Korhonen is ticking along very nicely this season without quite finding the spark that might allow him to launch a challenge for a third DP World Tour title.

He's made 10 cuts in a row since the end of March and whilst only once of them hasn't been top 40, just the two have been top 10 with a best of eighth in the British Masters at The Belfry.

Playing nicely there was an echo of last year, when he was third at the Ryder Cup venue, and might he pull off a similar trick this week?

Because he was also third in this event, carding rounds of 66-70-67-66 to spend all week in the top 10 and finish just one shot shy of the play-off.

Nor is it the only time he's enjoyed himself in Newport - he was eighth there in 2013.

I was half-tempted by last week's near-miss selection David Law (no win, but the full place return) but Korhonen it is.

Final Bet: Jens Dantorp 1pt each-way @ 33/1

On the few occasions PGA Sweden National was used on the DP World Tour, at the Nordea Masters, the players who thrived were often guys who had excellent records at Celtic Manor.

Indeed, the two winners, Alex Noren and Thongchai Jaidee, were both 2010 Course victors.

In 2014 Eddie Pepperell led in Sweden through 54 holes and the same year was fourth in Wales.

Joel Sjoholm, Sebastian Soderberg, Soren Kjeldsen, Stephen Gallacher and Nicolas Colsaerts all have top 10s at both venues.

Marcus Helligkilde was fourth at the Malmo course on the third tier in 2020 and he did land a pair of top 15 finishes in the two co-sanctioned PGA Tour events last month ahead of a missed cut last week. He was tempting.

But in the end I've just come down on the side of Jens Dantorp instead.

The 33-year-old Swede was a prolific winner on the third tier early in his career and it fuelled a swift rise to the main circuit but he lost his card in his rookie campaign of 2014.

The following year he got a start at PGA Sweden and made the most of it, sharing the 18 and 36 hole lead ahead of finishing behind Noren and Kjeldsen in third.

He's bounced between the first and second tier since then, but found something in early summer on the Challenge Tour and is on an absolute tear.

He started the run with a win in Spain before adding four top 10s in his next five starts, the first three of them top fives.

He was then top three all week at Hillside in the Cazoo Classic before finishing eighth.

Then again top three all week at Fairmont St Andrews before landing fifth in the Hero Open.

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